Then came Nevile Ingram,
and swallowed her up for a while, and when he had tired of her she was
once more without a friend. To Chevenix afterwards, rather than to Mrs.
Devereux, she had struggled to utter herself. That cry of distress, "he
wants me, to ravage me," would never have been made by her to a woman. She
would have died of it sooner. And now came the Pole, Morosine, and by
taking for granted (as even Lady Maria could not have done) much that
could not have been explained, put her at her ease. She found him a Jack
without the spirit--without the divine spark. She could never have loved
him, though she liked him well, and she had no idea that he thought of
nothing but the greatness of his reward when, after patient toiling, she
might fall into his arms. Every nerve in her body was now strung up to
obedience to Jack's idea of her. She saw, as clearly as if it was printed,
her fate before her. She was to put herself under the law. Jack should not
have loved in vain her "dear obsequious head." Nevile would come back and
require her. For Jack's sake, who had seen her too noble to be touched by
sin, she would dip herself deep in sin.
Morosine, who frankly desired her to be the wife of a man she did not love
in order that she might the more easily find consolation in himself
afterwards, had the wit to see that she needed some of his sophistry,
though not enough to know exactly why.
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